I get that impression as much from what Kennedy doesn’t say as from what he says. He’s bold and brash when talking about combined R&D efforts and product roadmaps, but he’s reserved when discussing revenue targets and near-term sales. He doesn’t say the Avaya-Nortel combination has been a commercial disappointment, but he’s not boasting of its conquests, either.

Unfortunately, though, when unwary market analysts examine a post-acquisition scenario, they will add the market share of the two companies involved, then assume the merged entity will maintain or extend its combined market share. For many reasons, however, that rarely — if ever — happens.

In the case of Avaya’s acquisition of Norte’s enterprise business, several complicating factors suggested that the merger, from a market-share perspective, would result in less than the sum of its parts.

First, there was the product overlap, which was not insignificant. Second, there were channel-management issues, which also were considerable. (Some Nortel partners were concerned about having to deal with Avaya.) Third, Nortel’s enterprise business had been in distress for some time, and it was suffering market-share erosion before and after Avaya took control. Fourth, even among Nortel customers still in the fold, some eventually will choose options other than those presented by Avaya.

I think Avaya anticipated most (if not all) of these challenges. Just after the acquisition closed, for example, Kennedy sought to temper post-merger expectations. He cited external factors, such as the weak economy, as well as the usual post-merger integration challenges. His tone was one of cautious optimism rather than of unchecked exuberance. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, with or without Nortel’s enterprise business.

What partly accounts for the difference in degree of coverage, I think, is Foxconn’s connection to Apple. As we all know, Foxconn manufactures Apple’s iPhones and iPads as well as computing devices for a number of other vendors, including Dell. Everything Apple touches is high profile, so it’s no wonder that the Western media gravitated to the Foxonn suicides once Apple was discovered among Foxconn’s brand-name customers.

Another factor, though, might be the intense secrecy that surrounds Huawei. It’s a privately held company, shrouded in mystery, run by CEO Ren Zhengfei, who emerged from the People Liberation Army (PLA), is a member in good standing of the Communist Party of China, and is said to retain close ties to China’s defense and intelligence elite.

“At Huawei, employees are continuously committing suicide or self-mutilation. There is also a worrying increase in the number of employees who are suffering from depression and anxiety. What can we do to help our employees have a more positive and open attitude towards life? I have thought about it over and over again, but I have been unable to come up with a solution.”

This is not exactly the sort of pitch a human-resources executive wants to feature in employee-recruitment campaigns. Nonetheless, it demonstrates that Ren recognized the problem and was thinking hard about whether his company’s “wolf culture” and “mattress culture” were sustainable models on which to build a business that could scale and compete successfully against the world’s leading telecommunications-equipment and data-networking companies.

Numbers can be sliced and diced, and they can be interpreted in a number of ways. As always, one should verify the accuracy of the source data and carefully check for an inherent statistical bias. I don’t have time to chase that thread now.

So, putting aside that debate, I want to consider another aspect of these stories: the incidence of at-work suicides at both Foxconn and Huawei. The instances of on-site suicide are well documented at both companies.

Perhaps I’m missing something — let me know whether I am — but I don’t believe there ever was a similar outbreak of suicides at technology firms in North America. Cisco, to the best of my knowledge, hasn’t seen its employees leaping to their deaths from the outdoor patios on Tasman Drive in San Jose. I don’t think we’ve seen anything of that sort at Juniper Networks or Brocade — or even Nortel Networks, where people have had considerable reason for despondence in recent years.

Workplace suicide is a dramatic act. It sends a powerful message. The victim makes a statement in not only how he chooses to kill himself but where he chooses to do it.